Pentlands Book Festival: 6 Nov – 3 Dec 2025

New committee members John Elliott, Anne Geddes, Ann Henderson, and Stef Lyons helped to fill the gap left by the deaths of stalwarts Martin Bone and Richard Watt.  These changes brought about a new logo and branding, a huge expansion of our presence on social media, and a new website.  

We ran PBF2024 over an extended period this year, partly due to authors’ availability; partly due to committee members’ availability, and partly as an experiment.  We will survey audience members to see if this is a preferred format.

Lin Anderson, Stef Lyons, and Marsali Taylor provided our usual heavy dose of crime fiction, and Graeme Johncock and Linda Cracknell filled our need to learn more about exploring our wonderful countryside. We also heard from Derek Forbes about his life in Simple Minds, and Allan Little about his career in current affairs, while David Greig discussed his first book as he transitions from his role as Artistic Director of the Lyceum to full-time writer.  And Alan Bissett brought Moira back for an unforgettable finale to the Moira Monologues trilogy.  But all the authors attracted enthusiastic crowds and many of the audiences took away a book or two to indulge in a new favourite author’s writings.         

Liz Beevers, one of the founder members of PBF, stood down at the end pf PBF2024, but generous sponsors, loyal audiences and supportive venue hosts encourage us to believe that the Festival has a future and we are already working on the 2025 line-up.